Fire of Ennui

by Ivana Skye

  They made a sound that might have been a hmph, but did so. “So you’ve traveled before,” they said. “Either that, or you’re really cocky.”

  Well, I was cocky, and some would say that I was ‘really’ so. “Traveled plenty,” I responded. “I’m surprised you couldn’t figure that out.”

  “What, by your … posture? Style of pack? Some secret signal travelers pass among each other?”

  I laughed, almost as a snort. “No, because,” I pointed at my face, finishing the sentence that way.

  “Because of your nose?” They asked.

  I laughed again, but stopped myself when I realized it might sound cruel to them. “You really don’t recognize me, do you?”

  “You’re like, what, seven-fucking-teen?” They asked, tilting their head with a snort—not as if they looked all that old themself.

  “I mean, I’m eighteen,” I said, “and famous.”

  The way they looked could best be described as incredulous. “What the fuck for? You’re eighteen, you just said so.”

  “Have you ever heard of ageism?” I said, halfway to a mutter, then shook my head.

  That did something to their face, their eyes. A squint, maybe? It was something like that. “You’re right,” they said. “Been through it too much myself.”

  “And you’re…?”

  “Maràh,” they said, “not that I like my name. Genderless, too, if you’re curious.”

  “I actually meant your age,” I said, but then shrugged. “But while we’re at it, I’m Nena. Female, since you don’t seem to know.”

  “Cool name,” they said.

  I blinked again: they clearly hadn’t even heard of me, despite all the newspapers, despite me being one of the most famous competitive circus performers in a generation. “It’s a synonym,” I said simply.

  At that they stopped, pausing entirely in their filtering before taking the filter out of the water to put it down and look at me—directly. I didn’t like eye contact much, but I wanted to meet their gaze: it was challenging, and therefore it amused me.

  “A synonym,” they repeated.

  “Yup.”

  “And you told me?” There was something in their voice that I couldn’t read, but of course, I chose to respond just to their direct question.

  “I tell everyone,” I said. “It’s public.”

  “What the fuck kind of person…” they muttered.

  “I don’t mind people knowing my truename,” I said, shrugging, letting myself break the eye contact, not minding that there was a chance they’d perceive themself as winning some kind of staring contest because of it. “I don’t mind people knowing my self. Nor do I mind the occasional random contact hitting me, even while I’m trying to sleep; it only happens rarely anyway. Most people are respectful enough. And, do you hear it? Ne-na.” I spoke it strong enough to invoke myself, to feel my next words deeper than my bones. “The sound is clear and evident, strong and certain. I am clear and evident and strong and certain, and so I refused to hide anything from the world around me. Even this.”

  My eyes grew wet as I realized the past tense I’d accidentally spoken. I had refused that hiding, I knew, in the time when I was the clear and certain and evident thing I had just explained to Maràh that I was. I had done so in the time of my performances, in the time of my rise and brightness, and I could not help but know that that time was no more.

  Instead of thinking more on that, I gestured something sharp, meaning an end to my only-mostly-intended invocation. I watched the strange look on Maràh’s face, and it was one I had seen before. I had just said scripted words, the speech I had long prepared in my head for any time anyone confronted me on my public synonym.

  But few people dared do so, over the years. Synonymy was too personal a subject for most people to ask even that most obvious of questions.

  Maràh, it turned out, was not most people.

  “Well then,” they said. “Nena.” They didn’t invoke it, but just tilted their head.

  I tried to respond with a smile, and I let some silence pass. But I didn’t want the conversation to end, either; I hadn’t really talked to anyone in days. So I asked something else obvious: “Where’re you headed?”

  Maràh made a tsk sound again and did something else with their lips too. They turned their head away from me and looked at who-knows-what.

  “Sounds like either it’s a secret or you don’t know,” I commented.

  “The latter,” they said through gritted teeth.

  “And you said you were underestimated, in your own life,” I said. “You’re running from something, not to something.”

  They turned toward me, flashing teeth, looking almost like a picture-book image of anger.

  I nodded.

  “Why the fuck are you nodding.”

  “Um,” I said, “I guess because you kinda answered my question. And because I … acknowledge that you’re mad. Which I guess I thought was something people might do, nod to acknowledge other people’s emotions, but now I’m realizing that it actually probably isn’t. I didn’t really think through that whole nodding thing all that much.” I was thinking aloud, and not even cogently at that.

  But Maràh snorted and shrugged. “You’re not wrong, about me running from something. You haven’t heard of my town, but it’s boring. And I’m no farmer. Even if my parents…”

  “Want you to be,” I finished, hoping I was getting it right.

  They shrugged again. “Guess so. Or they figured I would want to. Or they—didn’t ask. But then, neither did I tell them.”

  “You’re talking a lot for someone who just looked really angry that I asked,” I said.

  They shrugged yet again, and laughed. “I wasn’t actually all that angry.”

  I frowned: what could they have possibly been communicating that wasn’t anger? Who was this Maràh, and why couldn’t I read them in even the most basic sense? But I responded to their words and said: “Okay.”

  Their mouth twitched, but they didn’t say anything more.

  And then a few thoughts fit their way together in my mind and I asked, “You haven’t really been out of your town much, have you?”

  “I’ve been to yours,” they said.

  “That’s not much of a journey, you said it yourself.”

  They shrugged, but there was no way they didn’t accept my words. It was true, after all.

  I smiled and let my extroversion taking over entirely as I said: “Sounds like you might need a traveling companion. Especially if it’s one with a destination in mind.”

  “Is that an offer?”

  “Yup,” I said. “I’m going to Mangtena, wanna come? I know my way, if that’s a selling point.”

  A few hours later, we were walking down yet another hillside, me and Maràh, and they were starting to fidget. If they were anything like me—and I didn’t know if they were—there was a decent chance that meant that their pack was bothering them and that they’d like a distraction. So, perhaps sounding somewhat chipper—I could still do that with hardly any effort, even though these days thinking too long about much anything would only lead me to that fiery and terrible place of boredom—“So what’s your favorite color?”

  “Are you kidding me?” They responded immediately, the branch of a leafless tree to their right snapping off as they passed it.

  “Mine’s ice blue,” I offered.

  They looked me over, which of course meant looking up, so they stumbled a little on a rock. They didn’t let any surprise or pain show on their face, though, so far as I could tell. “I could kind of tell from the hair dye,” they said.

  It was true. My hair was that exact color, so maybe it was a little obvious.

  “Mine’s not ice green, if you’re wondering,” they added. “I don’t even really like that color. I always would have rathered my eyes be brown.”

  “Oh, so you’re a warm color person?”

  “Guess so,” they said and said no more, their gaze moving back d
own to their feet even while mine was firmly ahead. I wasn’t really worried about tripping; I knew I could take a fall.

  There wasn’t that much to see though, even with my head up. The budding oaks blocked any view I’d have of the wider landscape and bored me quickly. Vitalities, I was getting bored easily, even with a traveling companion.

  Although I’d by no means exhausted all possible conversation topics.

  So I decided to start again. “Hey, you still don’t know why I’m famous,” I said. “Wanna guess?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s boring,” I said, although it was perhaps the thing I least wanted to say. All it did was let me feel my mind wandering to that fiery place, a restless feeling twinging under my skin as my boredom in this moment and in all this month felt like flame.

  “I’m not required to want things, you know,” they said. “Especially not just because you want me to want them.”

  “Okay, so what’s the thing you hate the most?” I asked, figuring that of all things might get them to talk. “Like, in the world.”

  They coughed. “That’s tough.”

  “So there’s really that much to hate?” I asked, genuinely curious as we crossed a trickle of water and the wind blew a slight scent of campfire smoke into my face. It was possible, I guessed, that if I headed back I could find other people around whatever campsite that was—but for now, I really wanted to make the most out of conversation with Maràh.

  “Yeah,” they eventually answered. “There fucking is.”

  “Tell me more,” I said. “I had a good life, so I’m curious.”

  “Had?” They asked, and I realized what I’d said. I’d accidentally revealed that in truth that my life had already been lived, that it was over.

  “I accomplished my one, near-impossible, far-off life dream,” I said simply, another scripted line.

  “Hm,” they said. “This why you’re famous?”

  “Yup.”

  I waited a second, hoping Maràh would finally bite and make an actual guess, or at least ask me. Then again, there was also the possibility of me pressing them more on their hates.

  But they didn’t say anything, so I asked, “So, do you want to know?”

  “Not really,” they said, with a shrug.

  “That’s a disturbing lack of curiosity.”

  “You’re not forcing me into asking,” they said.

  “It was circus,” I said, although I wished I could have drawn out the conversation farther.

  “Okay,” they said, and that was it.

  My footsteps fell on rocks; the trees opened to reveal a couple more hills and a cliffside where a landslide clearly once was. A butterfly passed by, but it was small and white, one of the boring ones.

  “So you never said what you hated most,” I said as we topped the rise of an incline.

  They breathed sharp through their teeth.

  “Am I actually being annoying?” I asked. “And not just endearing.”

  “A little,” they said with some kind of entirely unreadable smile.

  I didn’t answer immediately, but instead scampered my way downhill; they followed, slowly, more cautious. “Is there something you’d prefer?” I asked when they caught up.

  “You know,” Maràh said, walking a few paces closer to me. “You could try occasionally shutting up.”

  “Well, okay,” I said, “sure, fine, but let’s just imagine this circumstance for a bit. Say I do shut up. It then naturally follows that I eventually un-shut up. What do I talk about then? Do you have any favorite conversation topics?”

  I couldn’t name the sound that came out of Maràh’s mouth. A cough. A gag. A stopping in their throat. I didn’t understand it.

  “Could you say that reaction in words, please?” I asked.

  They snorted. I frowned. This wasn’t going anywhere.

  But a wind blew and rattled branches and it clicked. “Oh Vitalities,” I said. “You would have told me, had you answered directly, that you don’t actually know, do you?” Silence; there was silence. “You can’t tell me that you don’t know,” I said, shocked, stunned.

  “Oh, I can tell you,” Maràh said, turning to me. “See, look, here’s me telling you: I don’t know. It’s entirely possible.”

  “You’re a smartass,” I muttered.

  “Oh, yes,” Maràh said with what I could only describe as a sparkle in their eye.

  I tried to engage them in conversation plenty of times all day. But the first time they initiated anything was after sunset, when I was working on making a fire. I was just adding a few of the larger sticks, the flame already burning the smaller bits. Maràh was just watching, and had been the entire time, and I was starting to get fairly convinced that they didn’t actually know how to make a fire.

  Apparently, they could guess that I thought that.

  “Before you ask if I have any survival skills whatsoever,” they said all of a sudden as the sky grew dark blue above them, “I can grow a mean crop of millet. Just saying.”

  I smiled even though I shifted where I sat on the cold dirt. “That’s a good skill,” I said. “I can grow, um, well … a cactus. Indoors. Sometimes.”

  There was darkness in the air, and the fire was starting to cast even more shadows, so I couldn’t quite tell if the motion on Maràh’s face was a smile. “I thought you knew what you were doing?” They asked me.

  “In regards to traveling, sure,” I said, snapping a branch in half with hardly any effort—my muscles had barely weakened at all after competing, and it wasn’t like I didn’t have a trapeze of my own back in my house—and putting both parts on the fire. “But in regards to agriculture? I’ve got next to nothing there. I guess it means that we’re just a good team, complementary skill sets and all.”

  “I doubt there’s going to be much field-tending on the road,” Maràh said, and this time I was pretty sure they were smirking.

  “Well, okay, sure,” I said. “But you never really know. Be prepared, and all.”

  Maràh shook their head. “It’s not like I want there to be that opportunity,” they said. “I told you already, I hated it anyway.”

  “You said you didn’t like it, not that you hated it.”

  “Do you get off on remembering my exact wording?”

  “No,” I said, “I’m just like that.” I snapped another branch. “I’ve always been good with words. It’s where I get my sense of humor. And my tendency to overthink the meanings of landscapes…”

  “Right, because you’re so funny,” they said, and even I could tell that was sarcasm.

  “You’ve known me a day,” I said, “give it time. But we were talking about you, and hatred, again.”

  “You were talking about it.”

  “Nuh-uh,” I said, head shaking. “You mentioned it.”

  “Oh, fuck you,” Maràh said, rolling their eyes.

  “I do actually enjoy a good fuck,” I muttered, shrugging. But I looked at them, the way their hand was tapping against the stones circled up around the fire. They were nervous, maybe. Or trying to focus. Trying to make it through feelings of some kind of intensity. That is, if they were anything like me. If they found their hand tapping in the same situations mine did.

  And so I said: “Hey. You don’t have to deal with it anymore, you know. The plant growing, the field-tending. That’s what traveling’s all about.”

  They smiled slightly, softly, and yet—I could tell, I could for once tell—genuinely. They even closed their eyes to go along with it.

  I knew then that I’d said the right thing. I began to suspect that this could actually work: the two of us, traveling, even though we’d been arguing all day. We could be a good pair, and so I smiled back and let my hands warm by the fire.

  4

  Nena

  spheres of influence

  We were step by step going uphill, surrounded by mountains; this was not an easy road. The mountain pass we were approaching was the only major one it was necessary
to go through, but it absolutely was necessary.

  It had many names. But my favorite name for this rock-coated pile of snowdrifts was “The last gasp of white.” Of course, that name only made real sense when traveling north, as we were.

  I blinked, realizing that Maràh was far enough behind me that I could barely see them. I tsked a little, not that they could hear me, or that it would do me any good to judge them—then I turned around, deciding to watch them come toward me as I waited for them.

  The incline was steep, as I had just myself experienced. Maràh was doing worse than I had: they were panting and each of their steps were slow. They were even starting to press their arms against one knee with some of their steps for extra leverage. I’d been there, when I was younger, and I understood. But I didn’t dare provide encouragement, not when what everyone needs in regards to that tends to be so different. I knew that some people would thrive off of “You can do it!”, while the very same phrase would send others into panic attacks.

  So I waited. As my heartrate descended with my new lack of exertion, the cold wind that moved across my face began to chill me. I didn’t mind. Part of me always liked the cold.

  Eventually, Maráh came only a few feet away, breathing heavily, sweat all down their face. I tried not to look like I was appraising them, like I was some kind of coach or trainer. That was not the impression I hoped to give.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Fuck mountains,” Maràh replied.

  I laughed, letting the sound that made it out of my mouth slip up toward bright and clear sky. “Now those are are words of a true traveler,” I said.

  “Thought real travelers were supposed to like mountains,” they said.

  I shrugged and half-chuckled again. I let my gaze land of the sharpness of a nearby peak; I, in fact, did like mountains. “You’re not supposed to do anything except walk forward along the road. And cursing it is often a really good way to make that happen.”

  “Hm,” Maràh said.

  “Hey,” I said. “We can continue if you want, but I’m down to let you catch your breath too. Plus, I’m wondering: what helps you, through physical difficulty?”